I can't get my head around this. The logic (as it seems to be a trend with Labour) doesn't make sense. We release 1700 prisoners as the prisons are overloaded. We then overload the probation service who have to cope with double the prisoners today that they are resourced for. We then risk increasing homelessness and risk offenders re-offending. We will release people like the killer of a 14 year old boy with a machete (who will actually go straight to an immigration centre to process his application!!!!) or the Northumberland Rapist / Killer who stabbed their victim 60 times. Then we will fill prison places with people who have shared offensive tweets defying the logic of prison system is on the brink of collapse. We then will risk increasing crimes as the deterrent is lessened and minor crime that hurts us all will be on the up.... and escalate. I don't get the logic, maybe because its illogic. I have been a labour supporter all my life but I now see that the difference between the Torys is that the Tories ripped us off, knowingly and with calculated planning and lied. Labour seem to be ripping us off as a nation because they don't know what they are doing. Then will probably lie.
That's not my point. The point I tried to make is .... does it make sense. To add to your point, does it make even more sense now? What's different is we have set up new laws and are adding a spike of inmates through the recent unrest. At the same time we are releasing high risk prisoners (not low risk as labour originally said). Of course our all sentencing system factors in early release so it's the norm, but this is a mass release decision and won't solve the problem. The places will quickly fill up or extending the logic... do we then stop sentencing ..... and arresting people .....
The Chief Inspector of Prisons has just been on and explained the government had no choice in this. In addition, unless they are one of the few whole life tariff prisoners, all will be released at some time, no matter how vile their offence. We already release 800 - 1,000 prisoners a week who have served the requisite part of their sentence.
Blame the ******* Tories they created this mess by under funding the justice and prison services for years just like the other public services leaving labour to clean the mess up again like in 1997.
Only this time, reduced massively the tax in take just before getting voted out, knowing that the incoming government have even less to try and fix it.
Results of Salt the Earth politics employed by 14 years worth of criminals. Calculated planning and lies. I'm still very 50/50 with Labour at the minute, but I'll reserve judgment until they've had time to get over the shell shock from what the last lot left
Been on news that there will be a lot who have not been prepared for leaving so the concern is how do they successfully integrate back into society. Irrelevant of whose fault it is that they are having to do it, the bigger concern should surely be this as if they don’t move back into society all the govt are doing is kicking the can down the road to cause a bigger issue later.
It’s horrendous. This is what I feared with Starmer. He’s the worst Labour leader of my lifetime & surrounds himself with the worst of the Labour Party, people like Peter Mandelson. They’re going to convince the average working person that this is what Labour represents & they’ll pave the way for the Tories / Reform to get back in.
Between 2010 and 2024, 9 prisons were opened... and 18 were closed. (although this does not necessarily mean we have fewer prison spaces). The probation service was attempted to be privatised by a Chris Grayling - so you can probably imagine how successful that was. Any lack of capacity is due to underfunding by previous governments as there has yet to be sufficient time to identify requirements, then recruit and train new probation officers. I would also note that the Labour government have yet to pass any laws, so we are currently operating under legislation as introduced by the previous government. But, of course, its all Labours fault.
Reports reckon Probation Officers will have caseloads of 70 people and a quarter at least of those released will end up back inside. Probation Officers will be looking for a less stressful job, as that's far too many people to do their job the way they would want to.
Regarding prisons, they're working with what they were left - so what would you have done differently?
Are you aware more than 10,000 were released early by the tories at various stages when capacity reached critical levels? The nutshell is we don't have enough capacity and the tories closed prisons without building more. It takes far longer to build new prisons than 2 months with a summer recess baked in the middle of it. What else could they realistically do?
Not only is it not possible to build a prison in a couple of months, it takes years - if not longer - to overcome any objections to the planning permission by NIMBYs who don't want to live near a prison. Nearly everyone would agree that we need more prisons so that prisoners are not released early, but nobody would want a prison building near them to house the prisoners. TBH, I honestly don't know how I'd feel, but I can imagine objecting too.
Precisely... Though Labour do seem to want to push through planning reform... Which is perhaps one of the policies I'm most reticent about depending on what it entails and how much leeway is given to developers. I doubt any new prisons will be complete by the time of the next GE given the issues you cite. I suspect out of town prisons would be most likely unless expansion if existing sites was possible.